GORHAM – The Gorham Planning Board unanimously approved a request Monday from a national company to construct a building addition at a cleaned-up former recycling plant in Gorham Industrial Park.

The approval paves the way for Anderson Equipment, which sells and services construction and mining equipment, to locate a facility at 18 Gorham Industrial Parkway. The company, which has a location in Cumberland, will have 18 employees in Gorham.

“We’re really happy you guys are coming to Gorham,” Thomas Hughes, a Planning Board member, said to two company representatives at the meeting.

The 8.3 acres formerly housed Plan-It Recycling, which the town of Gorham claimed had stockpiles of material in violation of town rules. The town initiated a court suit over the mess in 2010 and the Maine Department of Environmental Protection subsequently joined Gorham in the case.

“This lot has quite a history behind it,” Owens McCullough, of Sebago Technics, said Monday.

He is the agent for Anderson Equipment.

R.J. Grondin & Sons of Gorham, who said at the time the matter was in court, was a mortgage holder on the property. Grondin acquired the property during court mediation and trucked the piles of material to a landfill upstate. According to Gorham Planning Department information, the current owner of the site is CLRS Cleanup, LLC, at 11 Bartlett Road ,where Grondin & Sons is headquartered.

Phil Grondin Jr., a member of the family-owned Gorham construction firm, said Tuesday he expected the sale of the property to Anderson Equipment would close fairly soon.

Anderson will renovate the existing metal building for sales, offices, parts and a showroom. Under Monday’s approval, the company will build an 80-foot by 116-foot service garage with about 9,300 square feet. The addition will contain seven bays for its equipment service department.

The site is zoned roadside commercial, and is served by public water and sewer, underground utilities and propane gas.

McCullough said new landscaping would dress up the property along the front, replacing existing white pines with a mix of trees and shrubs, including junipers and elm trees.

“It’s a real nice project for the town,” Grondin said, “We’re looking forward to having them as neighbors.”

Anderson, founded in 1935, has 18 locations throughout the Northeast, McCullough said.

Owens McCullough of Sebago Technics shows Gorham planners Monday a rendering depicting a new use by Anderson Equipment at the former Plan-It Recycling site in Gorham Industrial Park.